Yim Soon-rye | WatchedThis
Yim Soon-rye
Directing
Biography
Yim Soon-rye (born January 1, 1961) is a South Korean film director and screenwriter. She is considered one of the few leading female auteurs of Korean New Wave cinema. Yim Soon-rye is most known for making films that focus on South Korean society. Most notably, women empowerment and women in film. Yim, who is also an animal rights activist, has worked on films that focus on human relationships with animals. Yim creates films that have personal stories and narratives that deviate from the big-budget blockbusters of the Korean film industry. (Wikipedia)
Filmography Movies
Acting
Ari Ari the Korean Cinema
Director Chung Ji-Young criticizes the thought that older directors have difficulties in making certain movies. Actress Yoon Jin-Seo agonizes over her identity as an actress. In 2009, before the movie "Unbowed" was made, they met and planned a documentary about Korean movies, including the processes a Korean movie goes through and difficulites. "Ari Ari the Korean Cinema" is a documentary with interviews of Korean directors, actors and actresses.
If You Were Me 2
Commissioned by South Korea's National Human Rights Commission, If You Were Me is an innovative omnibus film project to promote tolerance and human rights and shed light on the hardships disadvantaged people face in Korea. After the success of the first anthology, a second series, If You Were Me 2, was released this year. Five notable Korean directors - Park Kyung Hee (A Smile), Ryoo Seung Wan (Crying Fist), Jung Ji Woo, Jang Jin (Guns & Talks), and Kim Dong Won - participated in the second installment, creating shorts on human rights issues of their choosing.
Keeping the Vision Alive
Keeping the Vision Alive is a documentary film containing the voices and images of Korean women filmmakers-both senior filmmakers and also the peers of director Yim. The film is Yim’s homage to both contemporary Korean women filmmakers, written by a filmmaker of the same age, and also to the history of women filmmakers in Korea. Yim does not reveal her own voice or opinion and lets the voices and images of the filmmakers speak for themselves through a non-interventionist camera. From the pioneers, Park Nam-ok, and Hwang Hye-mi, who directed First Experience in 70’s, to recent filmmakers, Byun Young-joo and Jang Hee-sun, the film traces their experiences, troubles, concerns and thoughts as women and women filmmakers. Keeping the Vision Alive calmly and enthusiastically encourages and celebrates the struggles, the resistance and the survival of women filmmakers in a conservative Korean film industry and a male-dominated and sexist social system. (Kwon Eun-sun)
Production
Walking In The Rain
Jeong-ja isn’t especially pretty or talented. She’s an old maid in her thirties who works at the ticket booth of a theater on the outskirts of town. It’s a hot summer’s day, and because Jeong-ja cannot take time off from her job, she waits for her blind date at the theater ticket booth all day long. But the date does not show up. She follows a handsome stranger who comes out of the theater. At that moment, there’s a thunderstorm. The man disappears and Jeong-ja returns to the theater, drenched and there, she finds her blind date waiting for her.
Walking In The Rain
Jeong-ja isn’t especially pretty or talented. She’s an old maid in her thirties who works at the ticket booth of a theater on the outskirts of town. It’s a hot summer’s day, and because Jeong-ja cannot take time off from her job, she waits for her blind date at the theater ticket booth all day long. But the date does not show up. She follows a handsome stranger who comes out of the theater. At that moment, there’s a thunderstorm. The man disappears and Jeong-ja returns to the theater, drenched and there, she finds her blind date waiting for her.
If You Were Me
Anthology film of six shorts by leading Korean directors. Park Chan-Wook, tackles racial prejudice and the economic exploitation of immigrant workers through the real-life story of a Nepalese woman in Korea. Jeong Jae-Eun, tackles the plight of a paedophile released into the community. Yeo Gyun-Dong, invites disabled actor Kim Moon-Joo to re-enact his most famous protest. Im Soon-Rye, goes for the engrained sexism of Korean men with superb wit and, Park Jin-Pyo, confronts the horror of children forced into oral surgery to improve their English-speaking ability.
Forever the Moment
A look at the Korean women's handball team and their journey to the 2004 Summer Olympics. Their path was far from flowery, and they must overcome many obstacles before they can head over to compete.
Waikiki Brothers
Waikiki Brothers is a band going nowhere. After another depressing gig, the saxophonist quits, leaving the three remaining members to continue on the road. The band ends up at the lead singer's hometown, which was a popular hot spring resort in the '80s, but the return home is filled with reservations of previous and past disappointments, a lost love, unemployment and tragedy.
South Bound
Hae-gap is a director who makes anti-government documentary films. One day, Hae-gap’s son, Na-ra, runs away from home, but Man-deok, a freeloader living in Hae-gap’s house ends up bringing him back. Later, Man-deok raids the head developer of Deul Island to stop its exploitation, and Na-ra helps and ends up getting caught. In order to bring Na-ra out from jail, Hae-gap signs to stop making anti-government films and moves to Deul Island with his family. Na-ra sees his father leading a good, quiet life there and starts opening up. But when a construction company charges in to clear-out the island and the islanders fall at risk of losing their homes, Hae-gap leads a strike against it and his family fall in grave danger...
The Whistleblower
Lee Jang-hwan receives widespread acclaim and media attention after successfully cloning human embryo stem cells. A TV news program PD, Yoon Min-cheol, receives a phone call from an anonymous source who says he has worked with Dr. Lee on the stem cell project. The source blows the whistle on Lee's work, revealing how Lee fabricated research results and engaged in unethical practices.
Gallery
